Enhancing firm resilience: how the Valencian textile cluster responded to COVID-19-induced GVC disruptions

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates how the localization of firms in clusters enhances their resilience in the face of external shocks, using the COVID-19-related disruptions of global value chains (GVCs) as a case study. Our qualitative study of the Alcoi-Ontinyent textile cluster in Spain's Valencian Region shows that the cluster's institutional infrastructure facilitated the reorganization of the cluster’s cognitive structure, enabling small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to cope with the shock. Local collective actors aided in leveraging cluster enabling factors to enhance firms’ resource position and their reconfiguration, thus supporting firms’ dynamic capabilities, and ultimately their resilience. Our study contributes to the literature on clusters and firm resilience by showing that clusters can play a crucial role in SMEs’ ability to respond to external shocks and offering insights into how firms can leverage their location in clusters. We also shed light on the importance of institutions, collective actors, and collective actions in creating a competitive advantage for clustered SMEs.

KEYWORDS:

• Clusters; Resilience; COVID-19; SMEs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. Further data are not available because, due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly.

Notes

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under Grant No. PID2020-118340RB-100 and grant PID2021-128878NB-100 (AEI/FEDER), and the Valencian Government under PhD Grant ACIF/2021/322.